Deception research across the blogosphere

The physiology of lying by exaggerating: Over at the BPS Research Digest Blog, a summary of research that has caused ripples around the media: lying by exaggeration doesn’t seem to cause the typical physiological arousal effects that some associate with liars:

Telling lies about our past successes can sometimes be self-fulfilling, at least when it come to exam performance. That’s according to the New York Times, which reports on studies by Richard Gramzow at the University of Southampton and colleagues.

Their research has shown that, when asked, many students exaggerate their past exam performance, and that those students who do this tend to go on to perform better in the future.

What’s more, a study published in February showed that when these exaggerators are interviewed about their past academic performance, they don’t show any of the physiological hallmarks associated with lying, but rather their bodies stay calm. It’s almost as though this is a different kind of lying, aimed more at the self, with the hope of encouraging improved future performance.

Recently, two studies announced effective ways to determine whether a person was telling the truth — one used a brain scan while the other detected heat around the face. Since you probably tell the truth all of the time, it is likely that these reports will have no direct bearing on you. But, for those who perform lie detector tests or for those who might be asked to submit to one, these techniques could someday change how these tests are performed.

The Pentagon’s “Porta-Poly”: The news that the Pentagon is trialling a ‘pocket lie detector’ known as the Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System (PCASS) for soldiers has been picked up and commented upon by a number of sources including Bruce Schneier and the Anti-Polygraph Blog, but don’t skip the original MSN story which is well worth reading.

Update: Missed one: Over at Practical Ethics, Anders Sandberg discusses the ethics of using voice analysis for deception detection in Fighting Absenteeism with Voice Analysis (16 May). The news that some companies are apparently considering using this discredited technology to check up on workers calling in sick is chilling.

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